Posted
by
kdawson
on Friday May 30, 2008 @09:47AM
from the bring-down-big-metal-bird dept.

ManicMechanic and other readers sent in news of a tribe of aboriginal people from the border of Peru and Brazil that has been photographed by helicopter for the first time. The images show huts in a village and people in red body paint shooting arrows at the helicopter. The outfit that released the photos, Survival International, works to end illegal logging in the rainforest in order to protect the uncontacted tribes living there. They estimate that 100 uncontacted groups exist worldwide, about half of them in the Amazon basin.

I believe this [wikipedia.org] guy was the last one to surrender. He lasted 26 years.

No, Teruo Nakamura [wikipedia.org] was last. He lasted 31 years, from 1943 to December 18, 1974.

There are occasional references to a Captain Fumio Nakahira who was allegedly found in 1980 on Mt Halcon on Mindoro, Philippines, but they all repeat the same one-liner and appear to be based on a spurious reference. There were Japanese soldiers who were discovered later, but they had been aware of the end of WWII and settled down or joined local rebel groups. Nakamura is the last well-documented holdout in the strict sense AFAIK.

Look up the origination of the term "Cargo Cult [wikipedia.org]". It's really really really fascinating. For those who won't FTFL, cargo cults are those who originated in uncontacted areas in the Pacific (and likewise anywhere else) when allied aircraft would drop supplies for troops or aid for islanders. When the war ended, the drops ceased, but many islands have their own religions having to do with airplanes as a result.

So... you're probably absolutely right. Merely observing them via helicopter will drastically alter their world-view if not their religion as well.

They are probably using the term uncontacted very loosely.
These people are being driven from Peru closer to the Brazil border by loggers. You don't get driven anywhere without contact of some kind unless just the noise of whatever they're using to cut down the trees is making them move.
Maybe they just like to sleep in.

They are probably using the term uncontacted very loosely.
These people are being driven from Peru closer to the Brazil border by loggers. You don't get driven anywhere without contact of some kind unless just the noise of whatever they're using to cut down the trees is making them move.
Maybe they just like to sleep in.

Not necessarily. Actually, if you RTFA, you'll see that this particular tribe is actually growing in numbers, but that other tribes in the area are being driven away by loggers. They don't make a claim that the other tribes are "uncontacted."

I guess many evangelists can't wait to go there to ruin their culture by 'making them see the light'.

Ah, it goes beyond that. Many evangelical Christians believe that one of the requirements for the Second Coming is that the Word of God be preached to all the peoples of the world. In other words, God won't bring about Armageddon until every man, woman, and child has had the opportunity to convert first.

So you can be certain that a few misguided individuals, who simply can't wait for God to punish the wicked and destroy the world, will make it their business to try and locate these people.

if this is the depth of your outlook on people you don't know than you're utterly disgusting.

Actually, it does work like that sometimes.

E.g., "cargo cults." In the whole island-hopping in the Pacific, ground troops in the jungle were sometimes resupplied by airplanes paradropping crates of food and equipment. Well, some airplanes dropped their cargo wrong (remember, it was before GPS), some ran into the enemy and had to eject their cargo to escape, etc. At any rate, some of that cargo fell near some local tribes.

And the funny thing is, some of those actually started worshipping the big birds who dropped all that good stuff. And prayed that they'd return and bring them more gifts. And when that failed to happen, they built wooden airplanes and sometimes (those who were close enough to an airstrip to notice that those winged gods landed there and unloaded stuff) built whole wooden mock-ups of airstrips including the barracks and buildings around them. Some went to such effort as to even build mock-ups of the other stuff they saw there, such as "radios" with "headphones" made out of coconuts. Some stood guard or conducted drills with sticks instead of weapons, because they assumed it was some ritual to make the big winged gods come land there.

It wasn't the first time. The first well documented cargo cult, and undisputedly a cargo cult, was from 1919 from Papua. Those guys believed in the coming of a great ghost steamer to bring them tinned goods, tools, and stuff like that. That was their "messiah", so to speak. Furthermore, that they can communicate with the ghostly ancestors by raising and lowering a flag, on the flagpole a mocked-up office. Essentially they had looked at the stuff the Europeans did in ports, and how they communicated with their ships, and built a whole cult and ceremony around it.

But we have documented instances of such stuff from the 19'th century too. E.g., the Tuka Movement in the Fiji islands. On the whole it was openly hostile to the Europeans, and preaching the extinction or enslavement of Europeans by the natives, and using such visual metaphors as fattening a white pig representing the Europeans to slaughter it when the ancients return. But funnily enough, it also incorporated a lot of stuff which was mocking what the Europeans did. E.g., military parades, blessing water for their religious ceremonies, etc.

So, well, I don't care whether you find that outlook disgusting or not, but we have plenty of documented cases where it worked literally like the GP post said. If historical perspective offends you, so be it.

Oh, it's perfectly rational all right, except don't think they actually understood what the aircraft was or what the pilots were. Almost invariably this was not some enterprising souls anchored in a skeptical view of the world, but actual _cults_. They _prayed_ to those aircraft. Even when they realized there's someone piloting it (e.g., as in the ghost steamer cult of Papua), they imagined ancestor spirits, or gods, or bird spirits, coming in them to deliver those goods.

(And if you want something even funnier, at least one Sioux tribe eventually came to believe that at the end of days, when the ancestors' spirits come back, they'll come by train.)

Now I'm still saying that it's perfectly rational, for someone whose whole life and explanation of the universe is firmly rooted in spirituality and belief in supernatural spirits. The Europeans would have probably done the same if an airplane showed up, as late as the middle ages.

But at the end of the day, yes, it is rational behaviour and _human_ behaviour. If you saw a guy making a lightsaber out of 5 leds, a lens, and 4 D bateries, you'd try to do the same even if just for curiosity sake. If you don't understand how, you experiment a bit. These guys essentially did the same. They tried to replicate something which obviously worked for the Americans and Japanese. So I'm not trying to paint them as dumb or anything. I'm sure they were perfectly intelligent humans, same as everyone else.

But at the same time I _am_ saying that their explanations _were_ indeed religious. They used the framework they already had for understanding the world, and that was one of religion, magic, supernatural forces, and mighty spirits. They fit those airplanes and airfields in that framework. Because they had no other framework available.

So I wouldn't be too surprised if these guys in the Amazon did the same. Again, I'm not painting them as dumb, nor looking down upon them. But I do expect them to do what so many other tribes did: see it as some supernatural event.

Actually, that's probably how it would work for people you do know too, if they didn't already live in a post industrial era. Even now if somoene with Star-Trek levels of tech came to earth, some people could mistake them for gods (beaming themselves down to the planet, using the technology to magically make food appear with replicators, etc.. kind of like Jesus did now that I come to think of it!). "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

If these guys are really 'uncontacted' and living in mud huts, then they probably have noooo clue what science is. They wouldn't see it as man made because they have no idea that man can make such things! Anything that is regarded as true magic even to our society would be seen to be caused by some deity-like power or demonic force. It's just that for the last few hundred years we've regarded everything as explainable by investigation via scientific methods. Even if societies with as advanced tech as the ancient egyptians, who had some pretty clever tech and maths/building skills, saw a helicopter fly overhead, they would be in awe. They're not going to say "Oh that must be those crazy Israelites again - always building large chunks of metal that can float in the sky!"

Interesting how the woman in the photo is painted entirely in black, while some of the men have their faces or entire bodies painted in red. Obviously it would be nice to know why they have those customs, but I'm not sure how to find out without disturbing them.

Interesting how the woman in the photo is painted entirely in black, while some of the men have their faces or entire bodies painted in red. Obviously it would be nice to know why they have those customs, but I'm not sure how to find out without disturbing them.

The colors differentiate the class of warrior. When they go out on dangerous missions, the ones painted red get killed, the ones painted blue return unharmed, and the ones painted gold get laid.

"Members of one of the worlds last uncontacted tribes have been spotted and photographed from the air near the Brazil-Peru border."... "said uncontacted tribes expert Jose Carlos dos Reis Meirelles Junior."
Grats Jose, you just worked yourself out of a job. Some expert you are!

Actually lots of those uncontacted tribes are known and are photographed from time to time. However they exact location and the pictures is not disclosed often, because even though the jungle is huge someone would certainly try to reach them, and it would be difficult to prevent it from happening. The expert did this as a media stunt to draw attention to the protection of the areas these tribes live.Some quotes of what the expert said to Brazilian's newspaper O Globo http://oglobo.globo.com/pais/mat/2008/05 [globo.com]

So they are going to be "protected" from contamination.Yes I know that many tribes have suffered when the ran into civilized peoples but I wonder how they would feel about it if they knew.Yes your child could have been saved with just a few pills but we didn't want to contaminate you.Yes you could see what some of the lights in the sky really do look like.You could meet people from far across the sea and you two could fly through the air.But we don't want to contaminate you.

I wonder if they where given a choice what they would decide? Maybe it is wrong to not give them the choice.

I wonder if they where given a choice what they would decide? Maybe it is wrong to not give them the choice.

Redundant question. There is no way to give them the choice without "contaminating" them, since you'd have to show them "The Wonders of the Modern Age" to give them the information they need to make a proper choice. Once they know about those, the innocence is gone and their culture changed irrevocably.

Of your "Yes" points, the only one I'm sad to not be able to do is the medicine one. However, maybe

"Of your "Yes" points, the only one I'm sad to not be able to do is the medicine one. However, maybe they know about medicines we only dream of."Yea right sure they do...The myth of the noble enlightened savage.Life before technology was short brutal and pretty dull. Yes they mow know of some plant that may have some medical benefits but that is just a maybe.

Well, for the older generation, they have no chance of integrating into normal society, and for their kids, they are just going to end up like any other kids.. well apart from the fact that their parents may end up messed up on drugs and alcohol (as seems to happen to people like in inuit tribes up in the north of Canada etc). Life before technology wasn't necessarily dull. It could be quite brutal yes, but at least they probably have strong family units and a good sense of belonging in their tribe. In today's modern world, we all live in tightly packed areas, but hardly know anyone around us. It can end up being a very lonely existence. (yeah, boohoo for me eh:p ).

If these people got to experience our own culture and then were given a choice, I'm sure at least some of them - especially the older generation - would prefer to go back to the way things were.

"Uncontacted tribes" is a poor choice of phrasing. "Self-isolated tribes" may be better. These people are not stupid, and they know that other people exist. If anyone in that tribe wanted to contact the outside world, they'd just walk over to a logging camp or a park headquarters.

You say that these people should have a choice, and they do. They have specifically decided not to come to meet us, and in fact, they go out of their way to avoid us. We should respect that choice and leave them be.

Many tribal people who are today 'uncontacted' are in fact the survivors (or survivors' descendants) of past atrocities. These acts - massacres, disease epidemics, terrifying violence - are seared into their collective memory, and contact with the outside world is now to be avoided at all costs.

If there's one thing I'm learning about life as I get older - and maybe just maybe I'm turning a little hippie but the one beautiful and pure thing in nature is innocence.

When we watch a movie and a child or an animal dies, most of us get upset, we cry, we're sad - it's wrong.You have an adult die and it's a whole different thing, the key thing is the innocence, it's a beautiful and pure thing.

Nature in itself is innocent, beautiful and natural; sorry but I don't care how we could help these people, we've got enough mess as it is now, let them enjoy themselves, they are living life how they want to and frankly good on them.

Yes your child could have been saved with just a few pills but we didn't want to contaminate you.

Yes, as opposed to million of African children who die of malaria every year despite the fact that the aforementioned few pills could have easily saved them?

Yes you could see what some of the lights in the sky really do look like.

Yes, as opposed to the 95% percent of world population that will never see anything except the dirt they are digging or the nike shoes going past them in the assembly line? Forget about luxuries like university education, even things like books and the fucking internet is out of reach for most of the world's people.

You could meet people from far across the sea and you two could fly through the air.

Yes, as opposed to the millions of refugees who can't leave their war-striken country because nobody will give them a visa? Forget the plane or ship, they can't even leave on foot!

But we don't want to contaminate you.

I see your point, but by suggesting that we have some enlightened duty to help those "stone age" people, you are in fact using the same preferential treatment you are accusing others to have against them. There are hundreds of millions of poor, illiterate, disease-striken people in the world, who would GLADLY accept our help. Hell, there are many poor, illiterate, disease-striken people in our own fucking country. Help THEM out before you boldly take your morals to where no man has gone before.

Let's not forget that these people represent a kind of norm. This biological form that we take right now more or less developed during the long Stone Age -- i.e. most of our unwritten history is in that way of life. It means that the roots of our culture, and perhaps the way our brains are organised, draw sustenance from this long period.

We need these people to be just who they are, unchanged, for our own understanding of ourselves.

The problem is the ethics of contact: do we withhold the benefits of civilization? Is modernization a fair process? It's easy to dismiss a preservationist approach as romanticizing the savage, from your abstracted armchair reality. But, live with tribal peoples for a while, and you realize that short of modern medicine and food surpluses, not only is it not so bad, it has distinct advantages as a lifestyle, and is not so different from our own.

Whatever. I expect them to be overrun, poisoned, shot, and assimilated, then held up as an example of the superiority of civilization.

Although we do not know the name of the recently discovered tribe in Brazil, or what language they speak, it is possible to tease out some clues as to their way of life from the aerial photographs taken by the Brazilian government....

... for OOXML to be accepted as an ISO standard. Their spearman ooops, spokesman said, "though MSOffice does not support our language yet, I am sure they will soon because they gave us a picture of King Ballmer, and 24 glass beads".

You can only imagine a discovery like this is the sort of thing every Anthropologist dreams of. Finding some primitive culture, previously untouched by the outside world. Making contact with the people for the first time. Then showing them the power of the machine gun and overthrowing their chief, then ruling the tribe with an iron fist.

These tribespeople are giving the rest of our species a valuable lesson in how to greet the aliens when they land.

None of this kumbaiyaa stuff that lets sinister aliens into our arms before we know they'll enslave us. Throw some spears at them to see how serious they are about making contact. If they aren't sophisticated enough to anticipate our violent reaction to their sudden appearance, they won't have anything worth learning that we can't get from just capturing some of their spacecraft. If they're really that superior, they'll take it in stride and calm us down.

And if they're really evil, we'll at least have a chance to fight them off, rather than falling for some kind of "To Serve Man [wikipedia.org]" conjob.

That's exactly how this Amazon contact will play out. Why shouldn't we expect at least as much from our even more distant cousins when they arrive at our little backwater planet?

See, you expect it to be a "flying saucer", "landing". Because we're no different from these tribespeople: we've got our own myths and legends, and nothing else, just like them. When aliens arrive, it's more likely (out of the infinite possibilities) that their kind of arrival will scare the shit out of most of us, confirm some coincidental crazy superstition some of us have (and contradictory different ones between different groups of us), and generally just blow our minds.

We know nothing of these "new" people we just found in the Amazon, so I of course can't be sure about their particular beliefs. But unless they're perfectly unique among all peoples we've ever known, they also will have stories of strangers from "outside" coming, who they don't really consider human (because their tribe is the only humans, just like every tribe always believes until contacted).

Your basic reaction that we're somehow different from these tribespeople is exactly the reason that we're not, because they too think they understand the rest of the universe, even though they don't. Just like we thing, but are wrong. And since the universe is practically entirely misunderstood, when you compare our glimmer of understanding to the perhaps infinite vastness to understand, our degree of misunderstanding is almost indistinguishable from theirs, in proportion.

We should be certain only that we are certain of nearly as little as these Amazonians are. And take some more lessons from a people who have managed to keep their ways intact, as we hope to do when contacted by aliens ourselves. At the very least it's the best bargaining position from which to start the rest of our lives after contact.

Reading the article made me think if in the grand scheme of things, are we are the equivalent of these people to sufficiently advanced alien civilizations? "Spears against helicopters" might as well me like one of our Raptors going up against alien recon craft. Like this tribe, we'll probably think they're hostile (our literature, films are filled with alien war themes) but for all we know, they aren't really. It would probably be hubris to think something that advanced would go out of their way to invade us. (Like sending modern marines with automatic weapons against spear-wielding people, in terms of scale.)

It would probably be hubris to think something that advanced would go out of their way to invade us.

Why would that be hubris? It's not exactly unpredecented [wikipedia.org] for an advanced power to displace a less advanced one.

Invade is probably the wrong word though. Nature is full of examples of more adaptable/aggressive/advanced life forms pushing out less adaptable/aggressive/advanced ones. That's the most likely explanation for the disappearance of the Neanderthals -- displaced by more aggressive/adaptable Cro-Magnons. Homo Sapiens have done it to each other too (see the aforementioned link). It's not even

The way these things generally work is the term "uncontacted" is used to generate readership rather than reflect reality.

The more accurate phrase is minmal contact. Please remember, they share a forest with other tribes. There's interaction of all kinds.

In this case, geography minimized contact with the industrialized world. Those "uncontacted" tribes probably have at least one person that's gone all the way to the big city wherever it is thought to be.

Also note they are being pushed out by deforestation efforts, so you bet they've been on the wrong side of weapons and dealt with the industrialized world.

I see some shiny belts and shoes, but really - I'd call it fake more on the basis of every single tribe member being head to toe in red, orange, or black paint. (You can tell the black is paint if you look at the hands - way different color)

I just don't see a bunch of natives hanging around in the forest all painted up with no where to go.

In addition, the sight of a helicopter probably sent all the unpainted people going about their daily business into hiding. The red painted men probably were some sort of special guards for the village. They were relatively well armed.

Well if you read the article here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1022822/Incredible-pictures-Earths-uncontacted-tribes-firing-bows-arrows.html [dailymail.co.uk]
you would know that they painted themselves after the helicopter made its first pass and is likely a sign of aggression. As an Anthropologist I can tell you that elaborate body painting is not uncommon in this region. This is real, but the information is rather poor quality and biased (and the latter article is very ethnocentric - you will NEVER find a culture that hasn't changed in 10,000 year's contact or not!)

If it's real, I'd be most interested in how they reacted to the helicopter as a tribe - not painting themselves and shooting arrows, but how they viewed the helicopter - was it a ship or beast of the gods, or simply humans with advanced technology. I'd be curious to know if they crossed Clarke's line of 'sufficiently advanced technology'.

Also I imagine the helicopter will have a somewhat serious impact on the tribe and their stories, at least if they were to remain uncontacted for a few more decades. Imagine if a large portion of our population saw something that they in no way could explain logically.

There's a few books on the first contact in the New Guinea highlands (1930's) where explorers in an aircraft found a large number of people with no contact with the outside world. To sum up - being a different colour to anybody they have seen before and having aircraft was not "sufficiently advanced technology" and after a while the crowd got bored and went back to what they were doing. I think the response was something like "how do you make all that cool stuff?".

So why is it that we assume that THEY are the previously uncontacted ones? Aren't WE equally previously uncontacted, by them? They never called, they never wrote, they never flew over me with a helicopter.

You gotta admit, they have balls for trying to attack a helicopter, something presumably they have never seen before. Imaging seeing a helicoper, when the most advanced thing you have ever seen is a bow and arrow.

It would be fun to show them the real world. Either that or let them shoot some arrows, then fire back a couple hellfire missles, just to let them know who's boss.

As far as i know, there will be no contact between them and... the rest of the world. Our government (yes, I'm from Brazil) said that making contact would be a violation of their rights (?). So, the idea is to demarcate their land, and let them enjoy stone age.

PS. by "our government" I mean FUNAI, the government agency that takes care of the indians.

Don't worry. Local talk show host Artio Bellio is now tackling the topic of these mysterious UFOs and the little white men inside. Topics include first contact and whether they'll have any chance to fight back with their spears if they survive.

In attempts to get cargo to fall by parachute or land in planes or ships again, islanders imitated the same practices they had seen the soldiers, sailors, and airmen use. They carved headphones from wood and wore them while sitting in fabricated control towers. They waved the landing signals while standing on the runways. They lit signal fires and torches to light up runways and lighthouses. The cult members thought that the foreigners had some special connection to the deities and ancestors of the natives, who were the only beings powerful enough to produce such riches.

In a form of sympathetic magic, many built life-size replicas of airplanes out of straw and created new military-style landing strips, hoping to attract more airplanes. Ultimately, although these practices did not bring about the return of the airplanes that brought such marvelous cargo during the war, they did have the effect of eradicating most of the religious practices that had existed prior to the war.

Over the last seventy-five years most cargo cults have disappeared. Yet, the John Frum cult is still active on the island of Tanna, Vanuatu.

Either that or let them shoot some arrows, then fire back a couple hellfire missles, just to let them know who's boss.

That would be cool. It would also be funny if you just hovered there and let their arrows bounce off until they got tired of shooting them. Then just start flashing a bunch of colored lights in geometric patterns. Once you have done that, leave the immediate area for a bit.

Then come back at night, abduct one of their tribesmen and put him in a bright room. Once he is in the room, we come in with dark sunglasses with big lenses and snazzy white coveralls to go with the shades. We should ignore him/her if they try to speak to us (we likely won't understand their language anyways). At this point we should shove probes up their asses and then take blood and other bodily fluid samples. If the abductee is female, she should be impregnated (artificial insemination is best, but if you are desperate just find a human with similar skin color and don't have him where the coveralls and glasses combo).

In the event that you do get a female and impregnate her, come back in 3 or 4 months (time isn't important, just be sure to get there before the end of the second trimester so that the baby has very little chance of surviving outside of the womb). When you come back, put the coveralls and glasses back on and abduct the woman again. Once you have her, remove the fetus and have your dark skinned pal make some hand gestures to indicate that the baby would live "up there" (point up to the sky etc). Then place a tiny piece of a meteorite under her skin (I recommend administering a good narcotic dose here, not enough to put her to sleep but enough to make her groggy and unaware). You can either keep the fetus or throw it away at this point, you won't need it again for our purposes (though I recommend keeping it as you can sell it to stem cell researchers or you can dissect it yourself if you like embryology and you just never no when an aborted fetus might come in handy - it's best to store them in a deep freeze or similar device).

Finally, every few years, come back and abduct her again. Each time you do it come back with the same weird looking kid (note that he must be both wierd looking in some fashion and of similar skin color and body type to the abductee). Have her play with the kid and give her food and drink that would appear strange to her (you could just bring something from burger king just make sure to present it in an odd fashion). If she seems upset to leave the kid behind, have the kid indicate that he can't survive outside in the air (he could just take deep breaths and then pretend to gag while pointing outside).

This is a wonderful hobby, but be warned that it's easy to get carried away with it.